What was the last movie you watched?

[Relaxing Dragon]

While I still like both of Burton's Batman movies fine, I do agree that they've lost their touch over the years. Although that could just speak more to how the world's approach to comic book movies has shifted over time (for the better).

That said, Nicholson's Joker is still a lot of fun. I wouldn't call him "better" than Ledger's Joker, but then, the style of the character is so different for the two of them that it's comparing apples to oranges.

And besides, everyone knows Hamill's Joker is the best one anyway.

[Quantum Vagina]

While I still like both of Burton's Batman movies fine, I do agree that they've lost their touch over the years. Although that could just speak more to how the world's approach to comic book movies has shifted over time (for the better).

That said, Nicholson's Joker is still a lot of fun. I wouldn't call him "better" than Ledger's Joker, but then, the style of the character is so different for the two of them that it's comparing apples to oranges.

And besides, everyone knows Hamill's Joker is the best one anyway.

Well, Hamill's OBVIOUSLY going to win if you include animation.

[Pak-Man]

Burton showed the non-comic-reading world what The Dark Knight was really all about. Before that, the average Joe just knew him from the hokey TV show. Everyone was SHOCKED at how dark Burton's Batman was. If they had somehow tried to show Batman Begins to the '89 audience instead, nobody would have had any idea what they had just seen. As a transition, the movie ends up inferior, but I really don't think we'd be here if we hadn't got there first.

[Darth Geek]

Burton showed the non-comic-reading world what The Dark Knight was really all about. Before that, the average Joe just knew him from the hokey TV show. Everyone was SHOCKED at how dark Burton's Batman was. If they had somehow tried to show Batman Begins to the '89 audience instead, nobody would have had any idea what they had just seen. As a transition, the movie ends up inferior, but I really don't think we'd be here if we hadn't got there first.

Couldn't have said it better myself.

[BathTub]

Saw Winter Soldier, it was pretty good, lots of false tension in it though. I mean everyone knows that

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Fury isn't dead and that Bucky was the Winter Soldier

but still lots of interesting outcomes.

[Nunyerbiz]

The main thing that struck me about Burton's Batman the last time I watched it was just how horrifically dated everything looked. The late 80s stamp was everywhere... Just looking at Vicki Vale or Bruce Wayne in that movie and you know exactly what year you are in... no different than catching a glimpse of Travolta in a leisure suit takes everybody to 1977.

But overall I thought the performances and story help up. Nicholson is great and I've always preferred my Joker to be funny first and insane second.

[Johnny Unusual]

Moneyball

A great movie, and incredibly watchable.  I'm not a big fan of Aaron Sorkin (he's not bad, but not my cup of tea), but this is a great movie that showcases how great Jonah Hill is in a somewhat low-key role.  The dialogue really does work for this film (again, with Sorkin, he can be both wonderful and a bit irritating in writing dialogue) and the actors do a great job.  There are really no villains in the story and the characters who do provide obstacles are simply trying to do the best job they can, unable to understand the big shift in strategy and thinking (Phillip Seymour Hoffman is particularly good and subtle as a good coach who unintentionally sabotages the new strategy in trying to do the best job he can).  It is really a magnetic film and while it isn't exactly phantasmagorical, it's kind of surprising that Bennett Miller isn't doing more directing work (though he has a film coming out called Foxcatcher that sounds good).

[ScottotD]

I watched that last night too, I really enjoyed it despite knowing nothing about the story itself or baseball itself.

[Quirk]

Ghostbusters 2

Although the plot is weak, it's still well-written with a lot of great moments. Works better if you think of it as a Ghostbusters bonus feature and not as a sequel. Worth watching, but dear lord the soundtrack. Dear LORD. I never liked the Ghostbusters theme all that much, but it's pure gold compared to the abominable rapping in this. Really really awful crap.

[ScottotD]

Ghostbusters 2

Although the plot is weak, it's still well-written with a lot of great moments. Works better if you think of it as a Ghostbusters bonus feature and not as a sequel. Worth watching, but dear lord the soundtrack. Dear LORD. I never like the Ghostbusters theme all that much, but it's pure gold compared to the abominable rapping in this. Really really awful crap.

You don't like the Bobby Brown track? I love that song.

[Quirk]

Ghostbusters 2

Although the plot is weak, it's still well-written with a lot of great moments. Works better if you think of it as a Ghostbusters bonus feature and not as a sequel. Worth watching, but dear lord the soundtrack. Dear LORD. I never like the Ghostbusters theme all that much, but it's pure gold compared to the abominable rapping in this. Really really awful crap.

You don't like the Bobby Brown track? I love that song.

I've come to accept that it is my curse to have the entire forum disagree with my opinions when I post them, but I never in a million years thought somebody would stick up for the Ghostbusters 2 soundtrack.

[ScottotD]

Ghostbusters 2

Although the plot is weak, it's still well-written with a lot of great moments. Works better if you think of it as a Ghostbusters bonus feature and not as a sequel. Worth watching, but dear lord the soundtrack. Dear LORD. I never like the Ghostbusters theme all that much, but it's pure gold compared to the abominable rapping in this. Really really awful crap.

You don't like the Bobby Brown track? I love that song.

I've come to accept that it is my curse to have the entire forum disagree with my opinions when I post them, but I never in a million years thought somebody would stick up for the Ghostbusters 2 soundtrack.

Well I guess we're going to have to take control.

[Tripe]

Jodorowsky's Dune (2013, directed by Frank Pavich) is a kind of backward gaze, one suffused with disappointment, anger, and regret. It's a chronicle of one of the great unmade movies, a version of Dune mounted, as the title of the film tells you, by Alejandro Jodorowsky, the visionary/lunatic director of El Topo and The Holy Mountain. Jodorowsky spent two years trying to mount his production. If he had managed to pull it off, he would have beat Star Wars to theaters by a year. Who knows how that would have affected the cinematic landscape? Even as an unmade movie, Jodorowsky's version of Dune acts like a rogue quantum black hole, passing through the solar system and disrupting the tidy orbits of the planets.

The story goes something like this: After the success (in Europe, anyway) of The Holy Mountain, Jodorowsky's producer, Michel Seydoux, asked him what he wanted to do next. Jodo immediately said, "Dune," in spite of never having read the book. They duly optioned the property and began assembling a team of collaborators, which Jodorowsky thought of as "spiritual warriors." Jodorowsky envisioned the film as a mind-altering experience, planning to ramp up the spiritual elements already present in the book itself. Jodorowsky was one of the first directors to recognize the talent lurking in science fiction art and comic book art, and among the artists he recruited to design his film were painters Chris Foss and H. R. Giger and the great comic book artist, Moebius. Jodorowsky intended to recruit Douglas Trumbull to do his special effects, but found the man too demanding and too much of a technician. He wanted "warriors." Instead, he hired Dan O'Bannon on the strength of his work on Dark Star. While constructing the entire film with production art and Moebius's storyboards, Jodo also went about recruiting on-screen talent, including David Carradine, Orson Welles, Mick Jagger, and Salvador Dali.

The main pleasure of the film is listening to Jodorowsky describe how he seduced each of his collaborators in turn. Most of these stories are hilarious. O'Bannon--speaking in archival recordings--describes how Jodorowsky seduced him with powerful marijuana that caused him to hallucinate at the director's will, while Welles had no interest in the film until Jodorowsky hired Welles's favorite chef to cater the production. Jodorowsky is a hell of a raconteur, so it's not hard to envision him enscorcelling his talent. Most of the film consists of the director talking to the camera, with occasional input from his surviving collaborators and admirers. The connective tissue is provided by animated recreations of Moebius's storyboards and production art by Foss and Giger. At the end of its development, Dune was ready for cameras. It only wanted for money and a studio with faith in it. None stepped forward, alas.

As a film, Jodorowsky's Dune is not particularly adventurous--it's certainly not the film that Jodorowsky himself might have made, but then, what is? It manages to tell its story, though, and it makes a concise argument for the influence of this non-film that was never made by comparing the stuff in Jorodorowsky's big book of Dune to what wound up in other films afterward. Dune's influence on Alien should be obvious, given that Ridley Scott was one of Jodorowsky's successors on Dune. Scott had the wit to hire O'Bannon, Foss, Moebius, and Giger for his own film. He knew a good thing when he saw it.

You can see the bitterness in Jodorowsky when it comes to Dune. The shadow of Star Wars hangs over this film--Gary Kurtz, Star Wars' producer, is an onscreen interview in this film. The director is on record as blaming Star Wars for the failure of Dune. The gulf between the budgets of Dune and Star Wars is at least partly to blame for this. Indeed, the film's funniest scene comes from Jodorowsky's horror at David Lynch inheriting the project. "He can do it!" Jodorowsky says, a fact that depresses him. His gleeful schadenfreude at the artistic mess that Lynch put on the screen is hilarious.

I'm not really sure what to take away from this film. It's a lament for a lost film, sure, but it's also an indictment of the film industry and a portrait of its inherent myopia. It's a testament to how careers can be derailed, though in Jodorowsky's defense, he went on to make Santa Sangre and numerous graphic novels that feed off the pre-production work done by his "spiritual warriors." So his creative life didn't end, really. But it was another twenty-three years after Santa Sangre before Jodorowsky directed another film and as far as I know, it still doesn't have a distributor. I'll be interested to see if this prompts some enterprising mogul to buy the rights.

Really looking forward to seeing this, will probably have to wait till next weekend though.

[RoninFox]

Ghostbusters 2

Although the plot is weak, it's still well-written with a lot of great moments. Works better if you think of it as a Ghostbusters bonus feature and not as a sequel. Worth watching, but dear lord the soundtrack. Dear LORD. I never like the Ghostbusters theme all that much, but it's pure gold compared to the abominable rapping in this. Really really awful crap.

You don't like the Bobby Brown track? I love that song.

I've come to accept that it is my curse to have the entire forum disagree with my opinions when I post them, but I never in a million years thought somebody would stick up for the Ghostbusters 2 soundtrack.

Not the entire forum, I maintain that the soundtrack of that movie is probably the biggest flaw it had.  The soundtrack and score of the original movie almost made it seem timeless, but the bubblegum rap of part 2 was painfully late 80s. I will begrudgingly admit that the Bobby Brown song is the least annoying of the bad songs.

[doggans]

I mostly agree, though I'd hesitate to call Ray Parker Jr "timeless"; I think the only reason that theme doesn't date the soundtrack is because it became so iconic as a piece of the movie, in a way none of the songs from the second one managed to.